To improve golf swing performance golfers need to make full use of the stored power and energy generated during their backswing.

The difficult task for most golfers is not building this power reserve but rather their ability to deliver this power to the ball without any leakage.

Bottom line, any power leakage during the swing results in lost distance on the drive.

So how does the golfer prevent these power leaks to improve golf swing performance?

In their book, How to Master the Irons, authors Littler and Collett, explain power lost during our swing can be traced back to the action of our hands. They offer a simple technique which golfers can apply to their swing to solve this problem.

Littler and Collett write;

“…in the process of building your swing you should continually strive for power. Power is an elusive thing for a golfer to capture, and, when they capture it, they can still lose it at a flick of the wrists—and that is usually where the trouble starts. Most golfers expend their power long before they get to the ball, instead of building it up. This casting-type action is good for a fisherman but not for a golfer.

Occasionally, I find that I lose power, and this usually is traceable to my hand action. By practicing for a while, I find that I can reverse this casting procedure and gain back the 10 or 15 yards that I have so suddenly lost. In other words, instead of casting, I cock my wrists just as I begin my downswing. This has the effect of firming up my hands and setting them for the hit through the ball.

Many players cock their wrists immediately on the backswing, while others form a gradual cock going back, and then a full cock just as the downswing is begun. I am of this latter school of golfers and believe it to be the best and most effective method of obtaining maximum power in your iron shots. This maneuver causes the shaft of the club to dip slightly downward as the downswing is begun and ensures that no expenditure of power will take place until the last split second before the ball is contacted. The left side, incidentally, is highly instrumental in bringing about this late cocking of the wrists. Initiating the downswing with your left hip and left side tends to lower your hands and arms in close to your body, and, almost automatically, the wrists are set in a fully cocked position quite early in the downswing.”

To improve golf swing performance golfers need make full use of the power generated during the back swing.

The secret to adding 10-15 yards on your drive could be as simple as a “flick of the wrist” (no pun intended)!

We instinctively try to get more distance from our golf swing by putting more effort and force into it. It would make sense that swinging with greater force results in farther drives, right? I believed that too, until I had a read of Percy Boomer’s book, “On Learning Golf”.

In, “On Learning Golf” Percy explains how farther drives can be achieved by focusing less on swing force and more on swing rhythm and timing.

Read the Percy Boomer’s piece below to learn more about rhythm’s role in improving golf swing performance;

“Rhythm we know in ordinary circumstances as a flowing motion, and in golf this resolves itself into timed movements. Let us start with an exceedingly practical example of what this means. The most accepted theory is that as the club head approaches the ball your wrists will flick or become taut. When?, you ask. That has really never been defined, and the best definition I know of it is, “coordination of mind and muscle which enables the player to do exactly the right thing at the proper moment” … so you must find your own rhythm.

So we can start from the familiar word “timing,” which is an advantage. But though every golfer knows the word, fewer appreciate the significance of the sense which it represents. Because until timing does become a sense with us, a sense of something rhythmic, our attempts at corelating movements can only be on a very crude mechanical basis. It is stretching the phrase to talk of the “rhythm” by which a self-change gear box shifts gears, but a soaring seagull is charged with rhythm at its highest. The trouble with golf is that we are gear boxes trying to become seagulls. We have to develop rhythm on a mechanical base.

We want rhythm, flowing movement, in our swing. But as we have already discovered we have to dissect our swing before we can play it—just as a musician has to dissect a composition before he can even play the notes. And please note that he may learn to play the notes and nothing more; that is he may never get as far as the rhythm and tone in which all the delicate beauty and meaning of music are hidden. So also with our swings: we may have memorized the mechanics faultlessly and be able to perform them time after time, but, unless they can be blended by rhythm into a perfectly timed flowing whole, it will be a poor sort of soulless mechanical golf which we play. For, to repeat, rhythm is the soul of golf.

When we watch a really good golfer, we are impressed, of course, by the beauty of their swing, but perhaps even more by the sensation of prolonged effortless flight which their shots produce on us. They seem unaffected by the force of gravity, whereas our own poor efforts make for the earth at the earliest possible moment, which—as one of my pupils brightly suggested— may be why bad golfers are dubbed rabbits!

The good golfer can make the ball do two things which the bad or merely indifferent golfer cannot make it do.

(1) The good golfer can make the ball remain in the air a long time in the drive, or run a long way in the putt.
(2) The good golfer can make the ball fly, or run, dead straight.

Now these two attributes of a good shot are due to a profound knowledge of the golf mechanics plus good timing.

Perfect mechanics alone are not sufficient in golf. Let us try and examine the effect of accurate timing and see why it makes such a difference—the difference which we can all recognize between the almost perfectly timed shot and the perfectly timed one.

It hinges upon the fact that golf is a dead ball game. We have to set the ball in motion from a state of rest and this largely accounts for the extraordinary complexity and subtlety of the game. Good shots are easier to play in live ball games than they are in golf because the velocity at which the ball comes to us sets up a rebound, which together with the speed of the head of the implement we wield increases the speed of our return blow. The relationship of ball velocity, club velocity, and rebound are simplified.

Now we can trace the two elements of rebound and club head speed in the drive, the longest of golf shots. But now because the ball is “dead” their relationship is no longer simple. It is necessary to get the correct proportion of each of these elements into the stroke or the resultant shot will not be perfect. A slight overemphasis on either one or other of them completely changes the flight of the shot and such slight overemphasis in either direction is not a matter of golf mechanics but is due to a delicate inflection of timing.

Let us see how this arises. It is generally assumed that the faster we swing the club head through the ball, the longer the ball will be. This is true if, but only if, the maximum club head speed is attained just after we come into contact with the ball. Hence the fact that we often get exceptionally long shots when we are trying to hit easy ones. With the slower swing, the club head has still been accelerating when it made contact with the ball and so has been able to “stay longer with the ball” and so make use of the rebound.

We have timed a shot well only when we feel we have remained a long time in contact with the ball, “gathering it up and slinging it off the face of the club head” as I have called it. If we are to do this, the club head must have sufficient power to take up the shock of impact and still keep accelerating. If at the moment of impact we stop the forward pull of the left side (which is what we will do if we aim at the ball), this power is not available and the club head cannot, as it should, continue accelerating in contact with the ball until the ball rebounds from it.

We have timed a shot well only when we feel we have remained a long time in contact with the ball. If we stop the forward pull of the left side at the moment of impact with the ball, we do not set up the resistance necessary to take up the shock of impact and at the same time to keep the club head accelerating until the ball rebounds from it. In fact if we let up on the forward pull when we strike the ball, we “stop the club head at the ball, an absolutely cardinal fault in swinging.”

What do you think?

Summating our swing components into a perfectly sequenced swing pattern is sure to result in better swing expressions and drives. More synchronized golf swings means driving greater distances using less energy. Less energy expended during the golf game leaves us with more energy to use on the last holes of our round. Use this energy reserve to sink these final holes with greater and more accurate swings to win the game!

We all use our irons. Did you ever think about how important of a role iron shots play in a successful golf game?

Irons are the workhorses, in many ways the unsung heroes of our game.

We look to them at times simply to get us to the green but in other instances for help negotiating hazards or roughs.

Depending on who is asked iron shots can be considered the most important shots of one’s successful golf game.

In the book, “How to Master the Irons”, by Gene Littler and Don Collett, an argument is made detailing the crucial role irons shots play in a winning golf game.

Read a quote from the book below;

“Almost every hole in golf requires some kind of an iron shot. If you can consistently hit the greens with your approach irons and position your ball near the pins, you are going to get your share of birdies and pars. It stands to reason that a good iron player who can direct his ball to within the 15-foot circle around the flag is going to shoot lower scores than the player who is 50 feet away, chipping from off the green or blasting from a trap. It is rather difficult to three-putt from 15 feet, but the odds against parring a hole go higher when a player is trying to get down in two from 50 feet, whether he is on or off the green.

Iron play vs. The Drive and the Putt

There may be some disagreement with what I have said here, because some golfers believe the drive to be the most important shot in golf, others believe it is the putt, while still others consider the iron shot to be most crucial. One golfer contends that you can’t get the ball on the green with an iron shot if you are always playing out of the rough or behind trees. However, I wish to point out that, no matter where a player happens to be, a second shot, usually an iron shot, is still required to reach the green, whether you are in trouble or not. If you are, and your second, or maybe your third, shot is off line or misjudged, you are in further trouble. A good iron player can often salvage a par, or even gain a birdie, from out of the rough. A poor iron player has no such chance. It is well to remember that you measure drives in yards but accuracy with your irons in feet.

Another golfer maintains the premium should be on putting. I grant that ability with a putter is a great asset, but it can’t compensate for poor iron play indefinitely. Great players…do not rely entirely on driving or putting to bring them championships and regular paychecks. Naturally, they excel in those phases of the game, but it is their skill with their iron clubs that puts them on the offensive as soon as they drive off the first tee. By the same token, a faulty iron player must play defensive golf, steer clear of trouble, and rely on his short game to help salvage a respectable score.”

So what do you think?

Where do you stand?

Is iron play the key to your successful golf game or do you feel either driving or putting play is the most essential ingredient to your winning golf formula?

We mean tempered anger can be good for improving your golf swing and game.

Anger shouldn’t consume us but motivate and inspire us to want to perform better our next time out.
Below is an awesome piece about this maddening issue. It is a clip from Peter G. Cranford’s Ph.D. book, “The Winning Touch in Golf, A Psychological Approach”.

I absolutely love this book. It really helps us manage the game we play in our head so we can better play our game on the course!

In his book Cranford explains, without enraging us, how we can put such a potentially destructive emotion to use in a more constructive manner – to rouse our desire to improve our golf swing! He writes;

“Anger that is misdirected can cause trouble, but anger in itself is not bad. The stimulus toward improvement would very well disappear if it were possible for a person to train himself not to react at all. As a matter of fact, there is some question as to whether a person could learn to play golf unless a bad shot was a source of discomfort. In studies of the learning process, it has been found that a response that is followed by unpleasantness will get weaker. If it were possible for us to train ourselves to become completely undisturbed by a bad shot, learning would not occur.

The best attitude to have toward the game, then, is to practice self-control so that useless anger is not permitted to develop, and useful anger is directed into a quiet but completely determined resolve to remove golfing flaws through remedial practice.

This throws light on a matter of common observation. People who play golf on a narrow course hit straighter shots than those on a wide open one. Shots which arouse no unpleasant feelings on a wide course are quite distasteful on a narrow one. The con¬tinuous “noxious stimulant” acts like an electronic device to stimulate constant correction. On an open course, this would be lacking.

The above explains, in part, the psychology behind the common belief that your golf will improve if you play with good golfers and become worse if you play with poorer. With high handicap golfers, your fair shots will look so good by comparison that you will be pleased and learning will not be stimulated. With better golfers, even your fair shots will not be good enough. This will be unpleasant, and can stimulate improvement.

The above implies that for the very good golfer to become better he must set up his own higher standards, and set them so high that there will be unpleasantness attached to the shots that even good golfers would consider good enough.”

Golf game improvement starts within. A great part of our game is attitude. It’s not a matter of if a golf swing or two will anger us, but when. Today we learned anger is not only an acceptable emotion on the course but a necessary catalyst for our golf improvement process.

They can visit for a hole or two or stay for an entire round. These haunting swings can stay etched in our mind and can wreck havoc on our golf game. Once in our minds they negatively impact our feelings of belief in our swing and hope in our golfing abilities – a powerful blow to our game.

So if they’re a thing of the past and it’s all a head game, how do we move forward and improve our next golf swing, golf hole, golf round and golf season? Take a tip from author Leslie King.

In King’s book, “The Master Key to Success at Golf”, is a bit of ‘sport psychology’. To help golfers deal with these swing demons King believes that maintaining a positive outlook is your best defense.

Read below how King explains that in golf fortune is shaped by our thoughts – allowing us to brave the setbacks and look optimistically towards our next swing as being the opportunity to reclaim our golf game and win.

King writes;

“Never give up hope and allow your game to slacken after a bad hole or a run of slipped shots has led you to the premature belief that your chance of winning or finishing well up has disappeared. You do not know how the remainder of the field are faring or that your fortunes are not going to take a sudden turn for the better. And the winning score may well prove to be higher than you estimate.

In match-play sharp changes of fortune are common. You may find yourself several holes down. But if you seize the chance when it comes it may well turn out to be the start of recovery. And the player whose lead is being eaten away is under greater pressure than his opponent who is fast making up leeway.

Always keep in mind that you are not beaten, neither have you won, until the final putt drops into the hole.

Make up your mind to go on playing each stroke as it comes, giving your undivided attention to that particular stroke, regardless of what may have happened before or problems which may or may not lie ahead. In this way you will learn, with experience, the invaluable yet elusive art of stringing the strokes together.”

Wow! Remembering this simple, yet powerful, outlook will allow you to deal with the doubts and frustrations that creep in our minds and sabotage our golf game. Keeping a calm cool head is the first step in improving golf swing performance and our golf game.

Ever have a golf outing where you master the front nine but destroy the back nine? Or, ever had amazing practice sessions only to play completely off your game the next day? A great deal of that has to do with your mental approach to the game. In this past article below, written by Jack Moorehouse, are five strategies golfers can immediately implement to overcome their mental obstacles and help master their golf game.

All eyes are on Tiger Woods this week. It’s been 6 months since he played in a professional golf tournament.

That’s a long time for a professional golfer to be away from the game.

Plus, he’s playing at Augusta National, among the toughest golf courses on the Tour, and he may have some lingering affects from his knee surgery last year. It won’t be easy. That’s why most sports writers aren’t picking Tiger to win the tournament. But if anybody can do it, he can.

Tiger’s biggest problems at the Masters will probably be mental.

When you’ve played as long as Tiger has and hit as many balls, it doesn’t take long to get your swing in shape. Some practice grounds should do it. Plus, Tiger keeps himself in good shape all year round, so from a physical standpoint, he should be ready to go on Thursday.

But will he be ready mentally?

Below are five mental strategies that Tiger—and you—can use to cut stroke from their golf handicap.

Forget Your Mechanics

When you’re been away like Tiger has, you tend to think about your mechanics too much.

When you start focusing on where your hands are or where your shoulders are when you swing, you’re thinking about your mechanics. The place to work on your mechanics is in practice. There you can isolate a swing flaw and work on it without adding strokes to your golf handicap. On the course, think about where to hit the ball, not how to hit it. Trust your body to do the rest.

Think Small

Hitting to an area on the fairway isn’t good enough. Think smaller. Pick out a spot on the fairway, like a dark patch of grass or a brown spot, and hit to it. It’s called narrowing your focus.

Ben Hogan did it all the time. When told by his caddy to hit the ball to a clump of trees, Hogan asked him which tree he had in mind.

Narrowing your focus works well when putting, too. When you have a tricky three-footer, focus on an imperfection in the back of the cup and stroke the ball confidently toward it.

Use Visualization

Visualization is a powerful mental tool that can help shave strokes off your golf handicap. Use it as much as possible. The easiest way to access the power of visualization is through mental imagery.

Imagine the type of shot you want to make and then hit several of those shots in your head. Now hit the shot for real.

This is one of Tiger’s strengths. It should serve him well at the Masters. When you think about a shot’s outcome, you’re focusing on something you can’t control, generating anxiety.

Players who haven’t played in a while have enough anxiety. They don’t need more. Instead, focus on what you have to do then and there. That lessens the anxiety.

If you’ve seen Tiger play in the past, you know how intently he concentrates on every shot, especially in pressure situations.

Enjoy the Game

When you’re playing poorly, you tend to get down on yourself. If Tiger starts off poorly, this strategy will help. When playing poorly, ask yourself why you play? Is it for relaxation? Camaraderie? Mastery? Whatever the reason, remind yourself why you started playing the game in the first place.

If you’re going to play golf, you might as well enjoy it. It takes the pressure off and puts the game in its proper perspective.

Tiger’s quest for the Masters depends on his mental and physical games.

They may not turn you into a PGA pro overnight, but they will help you cut strokes from your scores. That in turn will shave strokes from your golf handicap. If you’re serious about improving your game, work on both sides of it.

Jack Moorehouse is the author of the best-selling book “ How To Break 80 And Shoot Like The Pros .” He is NOT a golf pro, rather a working man that has helped thousands of golfers from all seven continents lower their handicap immediately. He has a free weekly newsletter with the latest golf tips , golf lessons and golf instruction .

Two minutes from now I’m going to have an answer for all of you on how high you should be teeing your tee shots so you can improve your swing. The new drivers that have come out in the last 5, 10 years have what is referred to as a deep face.

From the bottom to the top it’s about two or more inches. Most players associate all of that space with teeing the golf ball high. We even have three-inch tees now.

So, that isn’t true. You don’t need that. Some of you might, but most of you don’t.

So, here’s my rule of thumb for how high should you tee the driver: If the mistake you make is that you constantly top the golf ball, that isn’t always the answer. You couldfix your postureand bend over a little bit and that would fix topping the golf ball.

If you always hit underneath the golf ball, this isn’t always the answer, where you tee it down so low. Maybe you simply need to get your chin up.

So, a great rule of thumb is that the golf ball should be slightly higher than the center of the club face.

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